SUHRAWARDI,S ILLUMINATIONISM ON GNOSIS OF BEAUTY

This dissertation aims at studying the nature of beauty and its levels and implications in the Philosophy of Illumination of Suhrawardi. For this purpose, the first chapter deals with the methods which have been applied in, and the intellectual resources of, Suhrawardi’s Philosophy, explaining the concepts of “intuitive experience” (Thawq), “immediate witnessing” (Shuhud, Mushaahadah) and “Illumination” (Ishraaq), and finally, the similarities and differences between Peripateticism knowledge and intuitive knowledge. In this chapter, it is concluded that, according to Suhrawardi’s ideas, there is no contradiction between intuition and argumental though intuition has the key role.The second chapter focuses on the light-centeredness of Suhrawardi’s Philosophy and light consciousness. This chapter covers different themes of the metaphysics of light, including discussions about the lingual and technical meanings and the nature of “light”, its relation to life, emanation of light and its general rules, intuition of lights and the meaning of their love, illuminative attribution (al-idaafah al-ishraaqyyah), the Light of the lights (Nur alanwaar) and the imaginal world.The third chapter addresses the meaning of “beauty” and other related concepts such as goodness, joy, love, grief, etc. in four different sections about types of light and colors, nature of love and its relation to joy and pain, the imaginal world and the mysterious metaphors inSuhrawardi’s treatises .The fourth chapter begins with the most important means to achieve the beauty, i.e. imagination and heart, and continuing to the criterion and levels of beauty and its relation to creativity and intuition (thawq), it ends by comparing the meaning of “thawq”inSuhrawardi’s and Kant’s philosophy. The fifth chapter concerns about the status of art, the artist and the artistic conduct in the Illuminative philosophy. As the final conclusion, the principles of Aesthetics according to the intuitive philosophy of Suhrawardi is inferred from his philosophical remarks and explanations about the luminous system and his intuitions.